Left Unsaid
by Queen Of The Wasteland
Summary: AU in which Loki grows up knowing about his adoption and has to face the realities of growing up in Asgard as a Jötun. (Gender Fluid Loki because the comics and I say so, world-building, teen-angst and family drama. Rating may change)
1. Chapter 1

Doors Closed, Eyes Opened

Thor looked to his left.

Then to his right.

Secured his surroundings and checked all the blind angles just like his tutors had taught him. The hallway outside his bedchambers was deserted. No guards, no servants, not even the trained wolf of a nobleman in sight or one of Lady Freyja's cats on a futile hunt for any mice potentially infesting the halls of the royal palace. The sound of Thor's naked feet padding over the golden mosaic floor sounded too loud in his ears. Not that any guards or servants or any other passers-by had the right to stop the crown-prince - or question what he was doing outside his chambers at this late hour of the night.

But word would get back to his mother and the last thing Thor needed was another lecture about how important sleep was for growing young Aesir. Young growing Aesir who had lessons with their fencing master early the next morning and after that an hour of study with their history tutor during whose boring diatribes they tended to fall asleep. Mother's eyes would look disappointed too when she lectured him about the risks of his nightly exploits and while Thor might be the bravest, strongest warrior he could possibly be at the age of thirteen, he still didn't like seeing his mother disappointed.

So he moved as quietly as possible, keeping to shadows along the walls, never scurrying and or scrambling. Just like his tutors had taught him.

Thor first caught sign of another Aesir-being after tiptoeing down a flight of stairs that led to the corridor connecting Thor's and Loki's towers in the Northern Wing of the palace:

It was Eir, his mother's handmaiden who could tell glorious tales of her time as a healer for the Valkyrior. But now was not the time to ignore the strange darkness behind her eyes and beg her to once again recite the story of the Battle of Útgarðr or even a humorous one like that of the Capture of Sæhrímnir.

Instead, Thor took cover behind a statue of his great-grandfather, Buri Giant-Slayer, as she walked by and made sure not to make a single sound, not to move a single muscle and not to draw as much as a single, traitorous breath as she walked past.

He did notice that Eir looked worried.

Maybe Loki was feeling under the weather again. His twin-sibling often fell ill during the warm season and when they were unwell, Mother called for Eir. Mother and Father said these bouts of illness was nothing to worry about - but when they said that, Mother wrung her hands in that way of hers she only had when she was concerned about something and around Father's remaining eye, there was a strange tightness during these reassurances that made Thor worry even more. He was thirteen. They couldn't fool him.

Once he was sure Eir was out of sight, Thor slipped out from his hiding place and continued on his way to his sibling's chambers.

When he reached them, none of the fires in the hallway were burning. The only source of light came from above where the dark skies of Asgard were visible through the crystal ceiling with its millions of stars and the two moons, Hati and Skoll, chasing each other underneath colourful nebulas and twisting galaxies. Sometimes Thor even caught of a flash of light when someone used the Bifröst, but tonight he had no time to sit and watch and wait and wonder - wonder where the Einherjar were going, which people they would help and which quarrels they were resolving.

Both moons were almost full tonight and round.

They looked like eyes, watching Thor approach his target.

Maybe Loki had already gone to sleep, Thor mused and smiled at the thought of jumping on their bed to wake them up. Not as clever as the schemes _Loki_ came up with - but their angry squealing would be worth it.

Pushing against Loki's door however – He found it locked.

Thor furrowed his brow.

Loki _never_ locked their door at night – neither of them did, in case the other wanted to slip inside for any sort of nightly mischief or just to slip inside the other one's bed to hide from any Frost Giants hiding under their own. Sometimes also to release a bag full of spiders or to pour honey into the other one's boots. (Thor still had to come up with a good vengeance for that last one.)

He tried the door again. Maybe he had been mistaken. He _must_ have been mistaken. Locking the door was against The Rules. (which were unwritten and ever-changed and depended on either of their moods and also mere convenience, but still. It was _Cheating_.) Except when he tried again, the door still didn't budge. " _Loki_! It's me!"

No response came from inside – but Thor thought he could hear the sound of fabric rustling.

Just to be annoying, Thor hit his flat hands against the door a few times. "You can't lock the door.

It's against The Rules!"

This time, there was complete silence- Not a single sound, even when Thor pressed his ear against the door.

"Loki, you need to open the door." He lowered his voice: "I think there are Frost Giants after me.

They'll eat me if you don't open the door." Still nothing. Thor rolled his eyes. Really?

"I'm just joking. There are no Frost Giants after me!" They were thirteen. Loki should really know better.

"Let's sneak into the kitchen. Volstagg says Andhrímnir made that chocolate cake you like so much…we can use this secret passage you said you found." How Loki kept finding secret pathways and entire hidden floors in the palace was one of the great mysteries of Thor's life, but as many times as this particular talent of his sibling had cost him a well-deserved victory in their games of catch or hide-and-seek, he knew better than not to profit when he could.

Suddenly, there was a noise behind the door. It sounded like…

Sniffling. Thor wondered whether his twin had been crying. Thor hated seeing Loki cry. Or just hearing it, like in this case. Hearing it was worse in a way because if Loki was crying on their own in their chambers it meant that it was _real_ crying- Not just a trick to get out of trouble of make people do what they wanted or to get Thor in trouble.

"You would do that?" Came his siblings – _his brother's_ voice, the voice of his _boy_ form – from the other side of the door. And he definitely sounded as if he had cried. He sounded…forlorn.

Thor pushed against the door again with more fervour but it still refused to budge.

"Of course. We've done it a thousand times before."

There was a moment of silence from the other side of the door.

"But would you _still_ do that. _With me_?"

Still? Thor was puzzled. Sure, it was late, but. They had been out much later on far more perilous quests than to sneak into the kitchen. One time they had even snuck into the royal stable and had taken Sleipnir for a ride around the garden. (As always, the Giant-horse had been vicious against

Thor and kicked its many legs at him, but Loki's commands it followed with perfect compliance. Thor had accused her of using some Seiðr-trick to make the beast obey, but Loki had insisted she was innocent.)

"Thor?"

"Of course, Loki. I would. Why wouldn't I?"

After another long silence, there was a clicking noise and finally, the door opened and Thor stood face to face with his twin brother. Even in the pale moonlight, he could see the deep, reddened shadows around Loki's eyes and his blotchy face was framed by a mob of unkempt hair. So he _had_ been crying. And hadn't stopped entirely.

"What ails you? Brother?"

Loki stared at him. Blinking. "They did not. You don't…You don't know…"

Thor pushed past him before Loki could invite him into his chambers. Which shouldn't matter because he had never needed an invitation before and they were twins and they didn't lock their doors and frequented each other's rooms almost much as their own. And yet he could feel his brother's eyes on him, following his every movement like a hawk, hesitantly following after him as if he were the stranger in these rooms rather than thor - but keeping an unnatural

distance.

"Did someone hurt you?" Thor demanded. "Because if they did - whoever they are, I swear I will"

"No one hurt me. It's. It's nothing."

Nothing about Loki's room seemed amiss. Which didn't have to mean anything, because his brother's Seiðr was developing faster than Thor could keep up with and things were only rarely what they seemed with Loki these days.

Thor wondered whether Loki was lying. He did that. A lot. Sometimes it made Thor angry - but he knew that his brother wasn't malicious in his tendency to speak false. (Well. Sometimes he was.) He just preferred the path of least resistance to obtain his goals which grew more complex and elaborate by the day.

Instead of asking again, Thor searched his own memory for anything that might have upset his younger twin.

He hadn't seen Loki since breakfast. Breakfast...breakfast. Thor remembered stealing some honey-filled plums from Loki's plate but that shouldn't be reason enough for so much crying. In fact, Loki had seemed happy enough to avenge their plums by kicking Thor's ankle underneath the table for the rest of the morning. Still had that bruise.

After that… any number of things could have happened.

Except.

Ah.

"Is this about what Mother and Father wanted to talk to you about?" At breakfast, Father had asked Loki to see them after his lessons.

'You're in trouble!' Thor had taunted after him, convinced that this was the comeuppance for replacing Lady Freyja's expensive necklace with a single bootlace with three mismatched wooden-pearls on it in an impressive magical sleight of hand during the last Þing. Or maybe the honey in Thor's boots.

'No one is in trouble,' Mother had said and had clasped Loki's shoulder almost… _possessively_.

Thor had blinked, unsure why a case of harmless brotherly taunting would warrant so much emotion in his mother's eyes but Loki had flashed a triumphant grin at him when she wasn't looking and hadn't looked particularly worried. (Then, Thor had been sure that someone else would be thrown under the chariot for whatever Loki was in trouble for.) No. Loki had _definitely_ been fine then.

"It's nothing," Loki said again. It wasn't a convincing lie and that alone was reason for concern.

"I'm just not feeling well."

"I saw Eir earlier. Was she here because of you?"

"She gave me something to help me sleep. I…I don't think I will join you tonight." No chocolate cake. _More_ reason for concern.

"I could stay here," Thor suggested.

"No. You snore."

"I won't. I promise." Thor wasn't even sure that he did really snore. Loki said he did, but Thor certainly had never heard anything. Loki said that was because he was sleeping when he did but Thor didn't entirely believe him.

"I might contract a horrible disease," Loki said. "If you fall ill, you will miss your training tomorrow."

"Then we'll be ill together."

The corner of Loki's mouth twitched upwards, for a moment so brief Thor almost missed. Then his brother wrapped his thin arms around his body. As if he were cold.

"Can…can I ask you something?"

Thor knew that question.

"Yes."

He also knew which request would follow it:

"You have to promise not to be angry." "I promise," Thor sighed.

"You said there were Frost Giants."

"What?"

"You said they were after you. That they would eat you."

Thor laughed. "I was jesting! Of course I was! There are no Frost Giants in Asgard." The monsters had their own realm, a place as dark and savage as they were themselves. That's what

Thor's tutors had said. "You're thirteen, not a baby. You should know that."

"Do you hate all Frost Giants?" Loki asked. He was wringing and kneading his hands like Mother did when she was worried. Of course, Thor figured, Frost Giants were a reason for worry, but since they weren't any in Asgard and would never be in Asgard, he couldn't quite follow his brother's strange line of questioning tonight. But then. He often didn't quite understand Loki. What mattered was to reassure him that whatever worry his overactive mind had come up with now was unfounded.

"Of course I do. They're the biggest enemies Asgard has and once I'm king I shall slay all of them and they shan't hurt anyone ever again. I'll protect you from them."

"Do you hate them more than you love me?"

Sometimes, Loki was just like an adult. He said things and asked questions that didn't seem connected and made dumb conclusions based on your answers and got angry or sad when he didn't like them. It was like when his tutors asked him questions about things that they hadn't taught him in their lessons and chastised him for not knowing the answers. It was unfair. Thor made a mental note to make it against The Rules, too. New Rule: Just speak your mind. Say what you think. Simple as that.

"No?" Thor tried.

"But if I were a Frost Giant- Would you still love me?"

"Did Eir test your temperature for fever?" He asked but didn't wait for a response. "You're not a Frost Giant. You're not a big, blue monster that eats babies. You're my _brother_. And I will stay here tonight." Even Mother would have to see that looking after you're feverish little brother was a worthy reason to stay awake.

Loki nodded. Maybe he had come to the same conclusion.

"Would you still…bring me some of that chocolate cake?" Loki asked innocently. Except his voice sounded hollow. None of the usual excitement his brother had for sweet treats. And sweets were usually the only kind of food he had _any_ enthusiasm for. "Just a piece? I'm really feeling unwell."

Thor clasped his brother's shoulder - who shrunk away underneath his touch. It stung but Thor let go.

"I will be back before Skoll can catch up with Hati."

"Take your time."

Clearly, Loki was sicker than he let on and if he thought chocolate cake would help, then it was Thor's responsibility as his big brother to procure some. Had the legendary Gunnr not defeated a hundred Giants only to see her wife smile? That was what heroes did for the people they cared about. And one day, he would be the greatest hero Asgard had ever seen.

His brother had asked for one slice. Thor managed to steal the entire cake before the moons were even touching so he was rather pleased with himself.

Until he found Loki's door locked yet again.

This time, there was no response to any of his knocking or calling or pleading or loud cake-eating emphasised by dramatic moaning.

Thor spent the night sitting on the ground in front of a locked door, watching Skoll disappear behind Hati and eventually re-emerge on the other side. His legs were numb and his head was hurting by the time both moons disappeared in the light of the rising morning sun.

He wondered whether Loki knew he was there. That Thor could hear his brother's breathing and sometimes sniffling or the rustling of his clothes on the other side of the door that separated them as they sat back to back in the dark.

* * *

Find me on tumblr: langernameohnebedeutung .com


	2. Chapter 2

Red Eyes

The Einheri, leader of several hundreds of the Nine Realms greatest warriors, stood stiffly in the royal nursery. In his hands he held a child – but from the way he was holding it as far away from his body as physically possible, one might think he was holding a nest snakes.

The infant in his grasp was squirming slightly and moving its lips but no noise came over them.

Even at the Einheri's hurried bow, it didn't protest.

Frigga recognised the cloth wrapped with little care around its body as part of the uniforms of the Einherjar.

"I…apologise. Your Majesty…I didn't know you would be here. I was ordered to find the wet-nurse."

"There is no wet-nurse. I'm the only mother in Asgard."

As if he knew that he was being if not mentioned then at least implied, young Thor reminded everyone of his presence in the nearby cradle with soft gurgling noises. Frigga smiled as her young crown prince placed a corner of his blanket into his mouth.

The longevity of the Aesir meant that only few children were ever born at the same time – strict regulations prevented over-population. It was no different for Vanir and Frigga wondered what it was like for the mortals, growing up surrounded by peers. But… there was clearly another child in the Einheri's hands and it certainly looked Aesir, if a little skinny for a newborn.

The Einheri cleared his throat. "I was charged with finding nourishment for the…child."

The Queen stood up from the seat beside her son's cradle, she stepped closer to the child –

"Careful!" The Einheri warned her.

Frigga raised a brow at him. "It's just a child, soldier."

Still, the Einheri looked strangely worried as she took the baby from his outstretched hands and wrapped her arms around its little body. A pair of green eyes looked up at her in wonder as she made soft cooing noises.

The baby's gaze was slightly unfocussed, following her movements sluggishly and where Thor was a constant source of sound and motion, this child was hanging limp and quiet in her embrace, the only sign of life the shockingly cold puffs of air it was breathing against her neck.

"Now, where did they find you?" She asked gently, rubbing small circles over the infant's back.

"I'm not at liberty to say," The Einheri said who was watching the proceedings with concern.

"Oh, you're a secret baby then, are you?"

Frigga made a mental note to pressure some details out of Heimdall later. Not that much pressuring would ever be needed if he disagreed with Odin's actions.

"Your Majesty, I need to take it back. We need to find a way to feed it. I'm deeply sorry I disturbed you but-"

"I will do it."

"Your Majesty?"

"I will feed it."

"Your Majesty, that would be…that…I'm under strict orders. And I need to take the child with me now."

"I am the Queen," She reminded him, "And the second in command of the legions of Asgard. I give you orders."

The Einheri swallowed visibly. The rank of the Queen as second commander was a mere formality – a replacement for the obsolete position of Executioner – but hard to protest against, the few times she ever decided to pull rank.

"Dismissed, soldier."

"Yes, Ma'am."

She lifted the child's chin up and watched its weak movements. "And send for Eir. She needs to look at this child."

"Yes, Ma'am."

She recognised the wobbling of the child's lip immediately – but even as it cried, it didn't make a single sound while tears ran down its round face.

When she unlaced her dress on the other hand and lifted the infant to her breast, it drank with eagerness despite its weakness.

"Hungry, aren't you?" She asked. There was no response – of course there wasn't – but she cupped the child's head gently and let it drink in peace. It hardly felt different from feeding Thor – or Hela, a eternity ago. Maybe a little colder.

One of its small hands closed around a stand of Frigga's hair, giving it the lightest of tugs even if the child itself didn't seem to notice.

Frigga smiled down at the baby, wrapping the wide sleeve of her dress around its body to keep it warm. "Let's find out who you are, shall we?"

When the baby tilted its head up to investigate the source of the voice speaking above it, red eyes met Frigga's – red eyes that she recognised.

Red eyes that resembled thousands of pairs that had met hers before, always in battle. She had to force herself to keep her grasp on the child still – a mother's instinct taking over - as blue started to spread over white skin and familiar markings formed on the baby's face. The hand holding onto the strand of her hair formed tiny dark nails. The temperature of its little body dropped like a glass of water, falling from someone's hand and shattering on the floor.

"Your Majesty called for—" Eir broke off and stood frozen in the door, staring in confused horror at the scene before her - of a Jötun child in her Queen's arms.

* * *

"Loki has always been strange," Sif said, "Remember that one time they turned into a cat and bit Fandral?"

"I do," Fandral said and held up his wrist for Thor to inspect. "It's been two weeks and I still have the scar."

Volstagg leant over and shrugged. "Looks more like a rash to me."

"What I'm trying to say is," Sif continued as if she hadn't been interrupted, "That they'll get around. They probably just lost their favourite dagger or their tutors refuse to teach them some dark Seiðr or something. Loki will be fine. They're moping and you, Thor, are moping because Loki is moping. So now you're both moping. What's the point?"

* * *

It was early afternoon when Loki first moved from her spot on the floor behind the door. Her brother's surreal visit last night felt like a distant memory and at the same time so intense as if he were still in the room.

She vomited into the latrine. Afterwards she mechanically brushed her teeth until the acidic taste disappeared from her tongue.

She regarded herself in the mirror. There were dark shadows underneath her reddened eyes, her hair was starting to curl and her skin was pallid and grey.

But not blue.

No lines.

No red eyes.

The conversation yesterday, the conversation with her parents by the fireplace in her father's big study might as well have been a dream, an illusion of her own making, a prank, a joke.

If her parents were the joking type. (They weren't. She could attest to that.)

Loki. Laufeysbarn. Laufeysdóttir, Laufeyson. The names felt stale and strange on tongue with a hint of bitterness. She drank more water to wash their taste away.

She curled up on the bench of the unheated sweat lodge adjoining her bathchamber. The sweat lodge she never used. Too hot. Which made sense now, didn't it?

Sometimes she heard people walk down the hallway outside her room and knock on her door, call her name –servants bringing food and drink and informing her that they had left a tray outside the door, Mo- Frigga came by no less than five times, Odin one time. Thor…

She wasn't sure that he had ever left. Just sometimes she heard him weakly call her name.

The second time she moved and returned to her main-rooms, she found that the sun was setting outside the windows. Sunna, the artificial golden star circling the flat Realm Eternal, seemed about to merge with the Bifröst, casting its golden light over all of Asgard, its thousand reflections making her eyes burn as she walked over to windows.

There on her writing table sat a small, flat chest and she let her fingers caress the decorative golden inlays and intricate patterns. Some of the symbols and engravings looked just slightly awry, but Loki didn't mind. She had made the chest herself. The smith had insisted that she wasn't ready yet for such a complicated design. Sveinn had always been even more condescending with her when she wore her female body but at the sight of the finished chest, he had pursed his thin lips and nodded in grim approval.

Inside the box was a book. A gift from Fath- Odin. Loki had been five years old when she had mastered the last of her runes. The book of her favourite sagas and tales from Asgardian history had been her reward. It had specifically been made for her and the illustrations had been drawn and painted by hand by the most renowned artists in all of the Nine Realms. (Or at least the three of them that Asgard considered worthy to interact with culturally.)

Loki had read the book only once – the night she had received it. After that she had carefully stowed it away, keeping it safe from too much sunlight and curious servants and her brother's clumsy hands. The day she had placed it in the chest that she had made with her own hands, two symbols of her own triumph, had been the last time she had touched it or laid eyes upon it.

Now she slid the key into the tiny hole and opened the chest, retrieving the book with trembling hands. The golden runes on the leather-bound cover gleamed in the light of the setting sun underneath a small layer of dust.

'For Loki. My dedicated, curious child.'

She swallowed.

Underneath these words was an illustration of Yggdrasil, so colourful it seemed stand out from the dark leather. Asgard was in the centre. Even in a mere painting, the Realm Eternal looked bright and golden like the sun itself, drawing the attention of anyone looking at it. But this time, Loki's eyes followed Yggdrasil down to its roots where Niflheim and Jötunheim sat at the bottom of the page. So small and dark that Loki had to squint to make out the details inside the tiny blue orb the illustrator had labelled: Jǫtunheimr – Land of Giants and Monsters. It was the image of a wasteland. A frozen desert underneath a dark sky with no stars, no moons and no sun.

Exactly as the warriors described it in their tales of the War.

She rubbed her finger over the little painting, almost expecting it to feel cold – but all she felt was soft leather, some dust and – like blade, lingering over the back of her neck – bone-deep apprehension.

Bracing herself, she opened it.

* * *

"Something is wrong with them," Thor insisted, "And it started after you asked them to talk to you. I want to know. I need to know. I have a right to know."

"It's not our place to tell you, Thor."

Thor turned towards his mother.

"So it really is about what you told them!"

"You heard your mother," Odin said, "It's not our place."

The daggers in the glare that Mother sent Father were barely concealed, but Thor didn't have the patience to mull over their meaning. That's what Mother and Loki always did. You could never tell what they were thinking and they didn't tell you either. They just expected you to know.

"I will find out. One way or another."

* * *

Loki's fingers wrapped around the edge of one page, covered completely in an illustration of Buri Giant-Slayer standing over the broken and bloodied bodies of the giants he had so eponymously slain, raising his axe into the light of the opening Bifröst.

The sound as she tore the page from the book cut straight into her flesh and it left the book as mutilated as the creatures in the painting.

With a quick enchantment she placed the page on the wall above her bed.

Loki wondered whether it had been Odin's decision to put the Ballad of Buri Giant Slayer first – it was neither the oldest of the stories nor the most relevant to the history of Asgard – but he was Odin's grandfather and the story came before all the others in the book. Maybe it was a warning. Or a reminder that the child he had given this book to was nothing more than another faceless, blue body.

As a child, she had always preferred the few stories about the heroes who defeated their enemies with their smarts and cunning. She had thought that maybe she could see something of herself in them like Thor saw himself in all those brave, golden heroes with their hammers and axes and swords who slaughtered their enemies by the thousands (without thinking, without elegance, without the smug moment of victory. She'd never seen the appeal of defeating an enemy without seeing the shock in their faces when they realised that someone they had underestimated ended up outsmarting them. Thor lacked that appreciation for a good and proper gloating.)

But she was nothing like Alvíg Quick-Blade or Dagmær The Cunning. She was just another monster to be slain, one of a long series of nameless corpses.

"I look like him, don't I?" Thor had once asked, posing and turning before the stature of their – his great-grandfather – raising his training axe like Buri did. "A bit."

"You look like a little boy. A chubby little boy."

But even then Loki had seen the resemblance – the same chin, the same brow. The broad jaw that Thor and Odin shared but Loki missed.

"Well. You look nothing like him at all!"

"Why would I want to look like some dumb statue of Old Buri anyway?"

After all, Thor had promised to hunt down all the monsters and to slay them all. It was only a matter of time until he got a statue of his own. And maybe Loki's face would decorate the pages of a picture book in a few millennia's time as well, given to some small child who had just learnt their runes.

* * *

"Tell me what's wrong with Loki."

"I can't tell you."

"Eir, please."

"I'm sorry."

"They haven't left their room in two days now!"

"I'm sorry, your Highness."

* * *

"…And Loki plays the Frost Giant."

Loki crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Why do I always have to be the Frost Giant?"

"You said you liked playing the Frost Giant."

"Well, maybe I don't want to be the Frost Giant this time," Loki insisted. "I hate being the Frost Giant."

"You have to be the Frost Giant," Sif said, as if it was obvious. "You're the only one who can turn blue."

'Family,' Frigga had said one night a long time ago, 'Is an extension of ourselves. A part of us. That's why you can never give up on family.'

Once, Thor had beleaguered Tyr about his missing hand. Had asked him how much it hurt to lose it and how he could keep fighting 'like that' and whether it was still painful. It ever stopped hurting.

Tyr, lifting his stump and inspecting it as if he had never noticed the loss of his hand before, had shrugged.

It had hurt a lot, he had said. He fought using his other hand. Obviously.

And sometimes it still hurt. A sharp tingling sensation that radiated from his lost limb up into the existing flesh and up his arm when he reached for doorknobs or put his lost hand through a table or raised it to grasp something.

Tyr had also told them that Eir had taught him various methods to control the pain. Physical exercises to remind his body that his hand was truly gone.

Loki hadn't understood then.

He thought that maybe he understood now.

He had lost his family. Had never had a family. He had been abandoned by beasts like Thor's pet goats had been rejected by their mother. And yet thinking of Thor, he still thought of a brother. Thinking of Frigga he loved her like a mother. And Odin he respected as a father. But they were not. Father had left no doubt about why he had taken him from that rock in Jötunheim. He was a tool. Means to an end. A diplomatic weapon, like the Casket lying in the vault.

And where he once had a family, he now had emptiness, a painful tingling where an extension of himself used to be.

He just needed a reminder. Loki looked down at his false, pink skin. A physical reminder that everything he was – what he thought he had been – was gone and irreparably destroyed. Like Tyr's hand was gone, irredeemably bitten off and swallowed by a hungry monster.

* * *

"We need to speak to them," Frigga said sharply. "You know we do. We can't leave them alone with this."

"Loki has to figure this out on their own. After all, one day they'll have to live with this on their own."

"They didn't take it well…"

Odin picked the woollen blanket up from where his wife had left it on the chair by the balcony and wrapped it around her shoulders, caressing the goose bumps away that had formed there.

"It has only been a few days, my love."

"A few days in which they haven't eaten. Haven't talked. Haven't left their room."

"Loki's faith in us is shaken. If you go now to shower them with motherly affection, they won't believe you. They won't trust you."

With a sudden jerk, his wife pushed free of his hands and dropped the blanket back onto the chair. "And whose fault is that? Whose fault?"

* * *

Just for a moment, Thor had considered asking his friends to accompany him on this quest but then he decided against it. This was between him and his sibling. A family matter.

This time, there were no curious eyes as he snuck out of his chambers only a few minutes after midnight.

He gripped the knife in his hand tightly – Sif had taught him how to open locks just by pushing in a particularly pointy blade into the small slit and cracking them open from the inside. And particularly pointy blades he had plenty. Usually courtesy of Loki.

He would confront Loki face to face. He would remind them that they weren't babies anymore who hid and sulked to avoid their problems. They were siblings and they stood together, no matter the danger and no matter the foe. And then he'd demand an apology, too for locking him out yesterday. (twice) Or at least an explanation. And then he would find out who had had hurt Loki so badly that they thought they couldn't trust him and he would make that person pay. He was a prince after all. And the first-born of the Allfather. He protected his flesh and blood.

But just when headed towards the stairs leading up to Loki's chambers, he heard another pair of naked feet padding across the smooth golden floor - in the opposite direction. His direction.

There was only one person who had reason to sneak out in secret at this hour of the night.

Like a shadow, Thor took cover behind another statue as his brother slipped passed him.

He had already opened his mouth to call out—But then, he shut it again. After all, he was here to learn what was bothering Loki and Loki had a gift for weaselling his way around the truth.

So Thor followed after him. Did some weaselling of his own. Quiet as a shadow.

* * *

The argument with her husband was still fresh on Frigga's mind when she headed for her youngest child's room, two cups of hot tea in her hand.

Odin's love for his family was real and deep but as long as she had known him, that meant for him to shelter them from any uncomfortable truths. Who knew how long it would have taken him to tell Loki about their adoption if Frigga hadn't demanded him to finally address the subject.

Maybe it was just himself that Odin was trying to protect.

When she reached Loki's room, she found their door open for the first time in days and her heartbeat felt heavy with apprehension. Loki didn't usually take the first step on their own. (Perhaps Odin was right. Perhaps they had just needed time to figure this out for themself.)

"Loki?" She asked into the darkness of the room before her, "Dear, are you awake?

With a wave of her hand she sent sparks of Seiðr to lit the fires around the room to cast their warm light.

"Loki?"

Concern coiled in her chest as she took in the state of her child's usually so priscine room. The bed was unmade, the floor was covered in clothes and magical trinkets that she knew Loki held dear, pictures had been ripped from the walls and the desk by the windows was covered in pages of parchment, clearly ripped from a book. Loki had suffered in silence, as they always did.

Stepping closer towards the unmade bed, she found it covered in more pages – illustrated pages that she recognised as works from the book Odin had given Loki as a reward for learning their runes so early. She had never asked her husband which of Loki's favourite stories the book contained – blinded by her own pride for her child - but the pictures left no doubt.

The tray slipped from her hands as she took in the pictures of the mangled corpses of Jötnar, dismembered by Aesir swords, their heads split by axes, their chests beaten in by hammers. Blue blood was spilt over the pages so realistically and gratuitously that Frigga herself thought she could feel the cold of the Jötunheimr battlefield around her once more as she stepped across the broken shards on the floor, crushing them underneath her feet like the frost of the Frozen Realm.

"…Loki."

* * *

Blue and pink fought an ever-changing battle on the baby's skin and despite the icy bite of the blue, Frigga couldn't keep herself from trying to rub warmth into the naturally frozen flesh.

"I think its Seiðr is trying to latch on to our touch," Eir explained as she tested the child's sluggish reflexes and inherent magical abilities. The mere effort of following her finger with its eyes seemed too much for the child, "It must have been isolated for a long time for its magic to turn towards mere physical contact, but the effort of shifting when we touch it is too much for its body to sustain."

"Then…why does it turn back?"

"An infant that can hold a full-body glamour for as long as it did is astonishing enough. But weak and starved as it is – it's bound to revert."

"I can't feed like that."

The child had tried a few times to reach for her breast while in its natural blue form but while she could bear to touch it through the fabric she had wrapped around it, its mouth on her warm flesh burnt her with cold.

"Maybe if I infuse it with some of my own Seiðr…" Frigga suggested-

"Your Majesty. If I may speak openly?"

Frigga raised a brow, expectantly.

"The Queen of the Aesir feeding one of these…feeding a Giant like that. It's not right."

"Maybe for once, Eir, you should not speak quite so openly. Not if you're doing it without thought."

* * *

Slipping through secret passages and hidden rooms that he had discovered and only ever told Thor about, Loki slipped through the bowels of the vast palace that he had thought his home for as long as he lived and into the Vault deep underneath its foundations.

The Casket of Ancient Winters was sitting on its podium exactly as it had the first time Loki had seen it, glowing in its strange, captivating blue. He had been with Thor and Odin the first time he'd been down here.

Now, he was on his own. A thief in the night. A stranger. Loki understood only in theory how the Casket's magic worked but he knew that if he touched it, it would give him the certainty he needed to supress the phantom pain in his heart. Once he laid eyes upon the monster hidden underneath this false skin, the illusions he had wrapped around himself since birth would have to lift.

Every step he took towards the pedestal – every step closer to the glowing Casket – felt heavier than the last. He could stop. He could turn around. He could run. But turn where? Run where? He could never be Loki Odinson again. He had no place. He had no home.

The Casket was surrounded by the same aura of cold that he remembered from his first visit. A cold that radiated and throbbed through his very flesh. But this time he felt more. He heard it, saw it, drowned in it –

Whispering, singing, luring and he knew that the Casket had been waiting all this time, all his life, for this moment. The Casket knew that he knew. It had been waiting here quietly. Waiting for him, right underneath this very palace.

Stepping onto the podium, the cold it radiated danced over his skin. It didn't hurt like he had wished it would, even when he stretched out his hand and let it hover over the Casket. It felt...welcoming.

His fingers turned blue even before his skin touched the handles and from there he could see his flesh turn as the ancient magic moved up his arms and chest. Even where he couldn't see it underneath his clothes, he could feel the cold swallowing him. It wasn't painful. It felt comfortable like the spray of cold water in the driest summer heat. Like a cool bath. Like letting uncomfortable ceremonial armour slip from his shoulders at the end of a long day and put on a loose silken gown.

Protruding lines had formed on his hands, smooth as leather – and he knew from pictures that they must have spread out all over his body. He was truly one of them now.

He was truly a monster.

"Loki?"

His head whipped up at the faint, horrified voice. Only to see his not-brother step out from behind one of the statues, a blade in his hands, his familiar blue eyes wide and scared as they met Loki's red ones.

"Loki is that you?"

* * *

"We'll find a place for the child," Odin promised her, "If not here then with the Vanir or the Elves. It will have a good childhood, I promise you that. Just give it to me."

The baby was as still and boneless in her grasp as it had been the moment she had first taken it into her arms. Not a single sound came over its small lips. The pair of innocent eyes – one red, one green – looking up at Frigga in strange, infantile wonder were the only hint that this child was alive and awake.

"You said you found him abandoned?" Frigga asked.

"In a Jötun temple, yes." Distaste twitched in the corner of her husband's mouth. "Maybe they were planning to sacrifice it after the battle."

She wondered whether some part of a infant's mind might understand what had happened, the unnatural crime it had suffered. Leaving your own flesh and blood behind at its most vulnerable was an act against every instinct a sentient being could have. It felt strange to think that the victim of such injustice wouldn't feel any pain or anguish over being abandoned like that by the very people it should have been able to trust. Maybe that was why the child was so quiet and still, refusing to draw attention while drinking as much as it could while it still had the chance.

She tried to imagine Thor's pitiful wails if she would put him down and just walk away.

Suddenly a blue hand reached out – not for her hair this time but her face and just as she braced herself for the painful bite of the cold, the hand changed colour once again, turning pink at the contact with her skin.

"There is a law of the Aesir," She said, neither to Odin nor herself, "An ancient law. I remember reading it the first time I left Vanaheim. It says that if a mother takes a child that has no parents to her breast and feeds and names it, then it is hers to raise."

"Frigga."

She looked up at him.

"I name this child Loki."


End file.
